


Doctor Sung and the Feelings Puppet

by SaintRose



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Best Friends, Coping, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Meouch being nice for once in his life, Puppets, Swearing, TWBB 2019, Vaping Mention, twrp big bang 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 01:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19861054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintRose/pseuds/SaintRose
Summary: Doctor Sung is the proud leader of his band, a group he considers more than friends, but his family. However, the good doctor has never been very good at communicating things, especially when things go wrong. In times of trouble, he turns to a good reliable friend – a soft, puppet-like friend...(AKA, Doctor Sung uses his Yoda puppet as emotional support to tell the band when things come up.)





	Doctor Sung and the Feelings Puppet

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was so much fun to write! I wanna give a wonderful shout out to the lovely [companion artwork](https://ahrempi-art.tumblr.com/post/186363455398/heres-my-twrp-bigbang-companion-piece-for) ahrempi-art created for this fic, along with my [editor!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrushCrush)

The first time Sung held the Yoda puppet, a gift he had received from one of their kind fans, he felt giddy. Instantly squishing the puppet’s face, he found himself laughing hysterically at the funny form before hearing a fairly bad Yoda impersonation rise out of his own throat. While it didn’t sound a thing like the real deal, it nonetheless seemed to match the character’s spirit. He enjoyed bringing the puppet along when he streamed with his friends on the internet, excited by how much joy the puppet brought others. And when he was scared, either by the game or the noises, he could look at Yoda and the puppet’s squishy face would comfort him. There was no way he could be scared or sad when Yoda was sitting there looking at him, right?

He found that playing with that puppet brought him some sense of comfort, more than just eliminating fear or making him laugh. The puppet started to bring him tiny bits of joy that could work away stress and anxiety. Sooner than he’d like to admit, he started to keep the puppet around more, throwing it in his bag when going to band practice or meeting the others to talk about tour schedules. For some reason, just knowing it was close by made those small moments of nerves a little easier.

But soon enough, he realized he needed the puppet more than comfort. Somewhere along the way, it started to become an extension of his personality, something that he could use as a tool to portray his feelings when words failed him.

That’s when Sung decided that he could use Yoda to do all the talking whenever things felt as if they were becoming too much to handle. Sure, it seemed kind of like an easy way out or as if he was hiding behind something, but…he was sure that wasn’t the case. The puppet just seemed like a comfort item, like keeping a smooth stone in your pocket or playing with an old bracelet from summer camp. Yoda was just something there just in case he needed a little extra support. It wasn’t a permanent thing, just something to connect with every once in a while...

* * *

The first time he used Yoda was when he had to tell the band one of the venues had canceled their upcoming show. He already felt the anxiety trickling through his limbs and settling in his stomach while the band all piled into his living room.

Sung walked in nervously, hands shoved in his pockets to not give away his secret weapon. He had an anxious smile across his face, giving him the appearance of being slightly crazed despite his mustache covering up half of it. Sung cleared his throat and sat down at an odd angle, his smile stretched almost painfully across his lips.

Meouch looked him over, not too put off by the Doc’s strange behavior, but still slightly concerned. He nodded his head in Sung’s direction. “So what’s this about? We outta start practice soon, bud.”

Sung grimaced, hoping it came off as a warm and casual, but ultimately failing. He slowly removed his hand from his pocket, holding up the Yoda puppet with trembling fingers. He cleared his throat again and began – what was to the rest of the band – a very bad impersonation of Yoda.

“Yes, mhmm! News for you, Sung and I have, news we do.” Sung turned his head away, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. “We regret to inform you, we do... Canceled, the venue did, mm.”

There was a heavy pause before Meouch coughed; it sounded painfully intentionally, as if he was trying to buy himself some time to think deeply about his next statement.

“Uh… Did they say why, Doc? Or, uh...Yoda?”

Sung pushed the Yoda puppet further towards the group, eliciting a small but concerned beeping sound from Havve.

“Overbooked, management says, sorry. Give refunds but still pay us, they will, mhmmm.”

The band stayed quiet for another moment. Meouch wished it wasn't him who had to speak, that someone else could just take over who knew how to deal with their weird friend better than he did. He took a slow breath, less worried about the show situation and more so about why Sung chose to use a puppet instead of just telling them.

“Well, alright Doc- Yoda. Thanks for letting us know. It’s, uh, a bummer for sure, but we can always hit that town next time we’re on tour.”

Sung flushed a deep pink and nodded quickly. The puppet was still directly in front of his face, looking at the rest of his band. His hand moved inside of the puppet as he spoke again. “Mm yes, thank you, understanding, you are.”

And just as quickly and strangely as the conversation had started, it ended. Sung gave another pained smile to the group, the puppet tucked close against his chest before he left the living room quickly, leaving behind a very confused and slightly concerned group of friends.

* * *

The next time the band saw the Yoda puppet was on the road. They were halfway to the next venue in “Anytown, USA” when they felt the van begin to slow down and sputter. Meouch barely had enough time to pull over before the poor thing died, his teeth digging sharply into the side of his mouth.

Everyone piled out slowly, the last being Sung. He pulled out his cell to call a towing company and asked for a truck to take the van to the nearest garage.

He glanced around at his bandmates, anxiety rising high in his chest as Meouch placed his vape in his mouth and kept it there for longer than it needed to be. He noticed Havve watching him, the murderbot’s eye seemingly more red than usual. He could swear he felt Phobos’ sigh curl against his brain through their telepathic link.

Sung didn’t have a way to fix it, and he knew deep down inside that the van would be done for good. Of course his worst fears were confirmed four hours later when a small town greasy mechanic pulled him aside, a look of grandfatherly pity on his face.

“Son, if you’ll excuse my language, your van is pretty damn old. We tried to see if we could get her up and running to at least last you the next part of your trip, but...it’s no good. She’s junk now.” The mechanic glanced around Sung to the rest of the band and spoke a little softer. “You might wanna talk to your friends ‘bout all this, but I could buy her off y’all for scrap. We have some other vans and trucks in our lot you folks can take a look at, so at least you’d have a little starting cash to work from.”

Sung politely excused himself before walking towards the pile of their equipment and luggage, pulling Yoda from his backpack. He gently placed the puppet on his hand and hid it behind his back before walking towards the others, asking if they could step outside for a small meeting.

There was shuffling and grumbling for a few minutes as they all settled into the parking lot, the sun behind them began to set. Sung awkwardly shuffled his feet for a moment, trying to stop the rising nerves from spilling over. He gently pulled the puppet out from behind his back and presented it to the now very quiet group.

“Bad news, mhm, yes,” Sung – or, rather, _Yoda_ – began. “Gone, our van is, dead and gone. Finance new one, however, we can!”

Meouch cleared his throat, turning his vape over in his hands. He knew he should’ve packed another cartridge. “Oh, uh. Yoda, bud, I... I didn’t know you’d be here with us for this...announcement.”

Sung looked down at his faded red and white sneakers and moved the puppet a little closer to the group, arm outstretched. “Mhmm! Here to help, I am!”

Meouch glanced at the other two for any kind of support before rubbing the pads of his hands against his face, trying to muffle his sigh. “Sure, okay, thanks then. I think it might be smart to check out what this dude has available. I just want to get back on the road.”

The other two bandmates gave quick nods of agreement before Phobos walked towards the shop again, hands shoved in his pockets.

Sung chewed his bottom lip. “Going to look at new vans, Phobos is.”

Meouch made a small gesture at Havve before the two of them began following their friend. “Are you two coming?” Meouch asked over his shoulder.

Sung felt his cheeks heat up as he realized he was lumped in with the puppet. He nodded and used his hand to make Yoda mirror the motion before trailing behind the others.

After a few hours (and a couple of hissed swears, and a handful of growls, and significantly lighter wallets), the band rolled out of the darkened parking lot in a new van. Meouch was back behind the wheel, with Sung curled up in shotgun. The group was quiet again – Phobos was reading, Havve was is standby mode, and Sung was sleeping peacefully, the Yoda puppet clutched tight to his chest.

* * *

The next time the puppet emerged, Sung ran into their mutual townhouse wide eyed and panicked, waving his arms and calling out for anyone who would come to him.

The first to find the distressed man was Havve. The robot appeared in the doorway, staring at Sung with his head cocked to the side, as if the new angle would aid him in trying to decipher why Sung was like that. Sung just looked at the robot and started sobbing, collapsing on the floor in hysterics. Havve turned with a loud metal sound and walked upstairs, returning moments later carrying an annoyed looking Meouch by the scruff of his neck.

The bot put the lion down and pointed to Sung. “Fix. It,” he stated, the rigid voice crackling at the edges as walked back into the living room.

Sung looked up at Meouch with teary eyes and pointed outside. Meouch quickly looked through the doorway and turned back to Sung.

“What is it, Doc? Are you hurt? Is someone here?”

Sung shook his head, wiping his runny nose on the back of his glove. He pointed to the front lawn and started crying again, quickly running upstairs to his room, leaving Meouch to search the front lawn in deep confusion.

What he found was not a dead body, not a threatening note, but the Swaggatron in pieces on the sidewalk. The Commander sighed and picked up the pieces in bottom of his loincloth, carrying them into the house. He deposited the debris into an empty box and closed it, making sure it’d stay out of sight for the time being as to not cause another meltdown. He composed himself and walked upstairs towards the distraught man’s bedroom.

He rapped the door with his claws. “Hey Doc? Can I come in?” He heard quiet sniffling and shuffling before the door opened a crack.

He stuck his head in to see Sung sitting on his bed with a blanket over his head. Meouch walked in and closed the door behind him. He wasn’t sure how to approach Sung, so he took a seat on his computer chair and wheeled closer to Sung’s bed.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Sung sniffled and rustled something under the blankets. His hand emerged a moment later with a slightly crumpled looking Yoda puppet.

Meouch had to stop himself from grumbling and rolling his eyes – this was clearly not the time. He let out a deep breath and did his best kind smile.

“Hey Yoda, can you tell me what happened to Doc?”

The puppets face crinkled for a moment and a raspy, lazy impersonation of Yoda followed. “Such tragedy! A true loss, it is!”

The puppet’s movements and gestures seemed to intensify and Meouch nodded. “Okay…? What, uh… What was the tragedy?”

The puppet’s face crinkled again; if Meouch had to describe it, he’d probably go with ‘2000-year-old man with severe constipation.’ “Broke, the Swaggatron did! Trick, Doctor was trying, but tragedy!”

The puppets voice was cracking, and through it Meouch could make out the whine of Sung’s voice.

“Were you or Doc hurt at all?”

The puppet shook his rubber head, the rubbery ears making a soft flapping noise. Meouch let out a quiet sigh of relief.

“Okay, well I brought the pieces back in, and I think between me and Havve we can probably fix it?”

The puppet’s head stilled and Sung poked his head out from under the blanket, his broad nose the only real thing visible.

“Really?” Yoda croaked. “Thank you, Commander. G-good friend, you are.”

Meouch gave an awkward smile and pat the puppet carefully on the head. He was still concerned by the puppet use, but mostly he was glad that for right now he could stop his friend from crying. “Yeah, I’ll take a look at it after dinner, promise,” he said as he padded out of the room.

* * *

He figured it might be time for a house meeting. It wasn’t that the puppet was an actual problem or that is was even annoying; he wanted to know why his oldest friend thought he needed that puppet to talk to them about things that came up unexpectedly.

Sung was normally the type to be honest, and address things head on without needing help. Sometimes that worked against him and he was a little too quick to respond. But this was starting to become the complete opposite, Sung only being able to express himself through the puppet meant something was really wrong.

It took the Commander a week to find time for them all to sit down together. He made sure to talk to the other band members about Sung and the puppet. He wanted to avoid calling it an ‘intervention,’ because that seemed too intense and too aggressive. He simply just wanted to figure out why Sung felt the need to use it or why he didn’t feel comfortable just outright talking to the band. There was something in the back of Commander’s mind that made him concerned that something more serious was the underlying cause of all this.

When Saturday morning came, Meouch felt himself on edge, hitting his vape more than he normally would and pacing the kitchen with his coffee. Havve and Phobos sat quietly in the living room, the two not saying much, which didn't help Meouch’s anxiety in the least.

Sung was the last to arrive. He took his time walking in cautiously, hands shoved inside his pockets. He made an effort to smile at Havve and Phobos before curling up on the couch next to them. A few moments later Meouch came in, holding an extra cup of coffee and putting it down in front of Sung.

Sung picked the cup up carefully and took a long sip, giving Meouch a soft thanks before glancing around the room. “So, uh, what’s happening guys?” he asked, the quiet already creeping up on him.

Meouch sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and looking towards the carpet.

“Well, uh… We wanted to talk to you about Yoda.”

Sung felt his cheeks burn bright red, the puppet in question weighing heavy in the pockets of his cargo shorts.

He let out an awkward laugh, his nervous energy making it much higher than necessary. “W-what about him?”

Meouch looked at the others, quirking an eyebrow in their direction and silently hoping someone else would step up. Unfortunately, he knew immediately that it was a lost cause.

“We just want to know why you keep using him to talk to us, I guess.”

Sung chewed on his bottom lip and started picking at the fraying edge of their couch with a sharp fingernail. He gave a shrug, sinking lower in his seat like a guilty child.

“I… I don’t know. I just like him, that’s all.”

“Yeah dude, we get that,” Meouch replied, not quite understanding what his friend had meant, “and that’s totally fine, but… Like, why does Yoda need to talk for you?”

Sung slid his free hand back into his pocket, fingers coming into contact with the soft rubber of Yoda’s pointed ears. A heavy quiet settled thickly over the room for a moment until a loud metallic grinding sound got all of their attention.

Havve’s eyes glowed a brighter red as he stared at Sung unblinkingly. “Have. We. Up-set. You.” The statement held no emotion and no tone, but it was obvious a question sparked by concern.

Sung’s shook his head furiously, still focused on the loose threads on the seat of their couch. He began to pull Yoda out of his pocket when he felt cool metal fingers close around his wrist firmly, but not tight enough to hurt.

“Just. Tell us. Please.”

Sung felt himself begin to shake, too many emotions rising to the surface all at once. Havve was never this gentle or patient – and neither was Meouch, for that matter. He took a deep breath and pulled his hand out of his pocket slowly, not wanting to let go of the puppet but knew Havve wouldn’t let go if he did.

“I just–” Sung’s voice cracked, and he coughed slightly in an effort to cover it up. “I don’t want to complain or sound ungrateful. But sometimes it’s just really, really hard to be me. Like, me-me as in Doctor Sung ...as in the last of my people, as in TWRP’s always cheerful leader, as in non-stop fun party alien 24/7. I-I don’t know. I love all of those things so much and I’m really happy, I swear, but...I don’t know! It’s just really hard for me to balance all the time and I don’t ever want any of you to have to carry my weight or not feel like I’m supporting you, so I just kinda crush everything down and sometimes things get too full, and–” Sung’s sentence ended abruptly, voice breaking again as he let out a single harsh sob.

The room fell silent once more. After what seemed like a lifetime had passed, Meouch spoke softly. “Dude.”

Sung looked up at him, making eye contact for the first time with the lion since sitting down. “I didn’t wanna dump all of this stuff on you guys,” he said with a small shrug.

Meouch nodded slowly; he understood, he really did. There was a time in his life where he barely told anyone anything, barely trusted another living person. But what changed that – or, rather, who changed that – was Doctor Sung, a man he had always seen as a kind and fearless leader.

“But none of what’s happened – the van, the Swaggatron, the venue shit – none of that has been your fault, dude. And even if it was, somehow, we wouldn’t blame you for it. Sure, you’re our band leader and stuff, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a leader all the time. Even leaders need time off or time to break down and just be. You don’t have to be strong for us – we’re strong for each other, man, that’s why we work.”

Sung felt his heart flutter, tears trickling down his cheeks. “It just felt easier for Yoda to give you guys the bad news than if it was me. I don’t want to give bad news, like ever. You guys are my family and that means I want you all to be okay and happy.”

Meouch leaned forward in his seat, keeping his eye contact with his friend. “Doc, what it all comes down to is that we’re a family; we always have been and always will be. Hell, even if you had to tell us the world was blowing up it, wouldn’t change that we all care about you. We want you to be happy and okay. You matter just as much as we do, if not a little more. I mean, you’re the reason we’re all here in this room together on Earth.”

Sung’s heart felt an odd touch of warmth at the usually rough man showing such strong emotion.

The quiet was broken in his mind shortly after by Phobos’ telepathic link, the words swirling gently into his consciousness. “You are and always will be someone we care for. So please, try and talk to us without the puppet. I know you can do it.”

Sung smiled softly. “Phobos asked me to try and not use Yoda when talking to y’all.”

“It might be hard at first, but it’ll be worth it,” Meouch agreed.

Sung nodded solemnly, picking at the edges of the couch, feeling the need to keep his hands busy in order to avoid gripping the puppet for support. “It’s definitely going to be hard, ‘cause even now I want to use him to talk. He just seems so much cooler at dealing with things.”

Meouch let out a warm chuckle. “Honestly Doc, we think you’re cool enough.”

Sung blushed, shaking his head. “I don’t know man… I could never be as cool as Yoda.”

He started to feel his fears and anxiety fade away, the weight the puppet kept in his pocket started to lighten. The idea was scary, letting go of something that had been a comfort item for a while now; it kind of felt like parting with a beloved stuffed animal or something, even though his puppet was a relatively new part of his life. But he wanted to be strong for them, and if being strong meant not totally being strong all the time, then that was okay.

The metallic sound filled the air returned once more, jolting Sung out of his thoughts. “You. Are. Cool-er. And much tall-er. Than Yo-da.”

The room went silent for a split second before everyone burst into laughter. Sung almost doubled over when he looked at Havve, who was starting at the rest of them in confusion.

“Okay, okay, well you got me there, Havve buddy! You totally got me there!” 


End file.
